Category: RoN

The damage calculations for RoN are, in short, complicated.

Units have a base attack value, which then goes through potentially up to at least eight unique damage modifiers¹² depending on the units (and/or buildings) and circumstances involved. After all the modifiers, the defending unit’s armor is applied as a flat reduction and you end up with the final damage value.³

All of the static modifiers are calculated on game load, allowing for the values that are hardcoded into the game to be modified further by its game files, such as through official patches and user-made mods. The resulting calculation is a 493×493 table made by the game featuring every unit and building in RoN, even some that can never enter combat (Bison, Whales), or that are never used in the game (Siege/Catapult Ships).

This 493² matrix is part of the enormous header located in save game files, meaning we’re able to extract and view it. Here’s how to go about that.

Continue reading “Extracting RoN’s Damage Modifiers Matrix/Table”

Depending on how you classify things, there are three or four different forms for RoN mods:

• Workshop mods
• Local mods
• Direct mods
• Dropdown mods (which can be Workshop or Local mods, but not Direct mods)

While pursuing improvements for CBP Alpha 7, I’ve explored many ideas to improve the usability of the mod. In doing so, I got this close to creating another mod format that would’ve combined the stability advantages of Direct mods with the file separation that Local mods have, and the distribution and ease-of-use benefits that Workshop mods have.⁴ Here’s what went wrong.

Continue reading “That Time I Almost Created a New Mod Format for RoN”

In the course of my RoN modding adventures, I decided to make a broad-scope “tech demo” style mod, showcasing some of the moddable aspects of RoN that I felt were being underutilisied – and hopefully learning a few things in the process.

After trying to mod a few things that I feel have been vastly undermodded, I ran into.. some problems. After much frustrating troubleshooting and testing, I realised this was due a limitation of RoN’s mod manager.

I then got to work on how to get around it.

Continue reading “My Workaround for the Limitations of the RoN Mod Manager”

Hop on the wagon as we run through Granaries, Lumber Mills, Universities and more.

Continue reading “Building a Strong Economy Part 4: Enhancement / Amplifier Buildings”

After publishing my article on War Elephants, TripleAAA commented asking about Militia and Minuteman (Minutemen?) against War Elephants. I hadn’t tested that but it seemed like useful information to have, so I put it on the to-do list.

While running these new tests I also ended up with some questions of my own regarding the ranged attack of Mahouts. Was the damage of the melee and ranged attacks identical? Was the damage modifier different for the ranged and melee attacks (i.e. would one attack deal different damage to the other depending on what unit was being hit)?

I set out to answer both sets of questions, and ended up stumbling into a few surprising answers in the course of doing so.

Continue reading “Elephants Followup: Militia, Minuteman, and the Fake Melee Attack of Mahouts”

Regular members of the Rise of Nations Discord server will likely be at least vaguely aware of how much I dislike fighting against War Elephants, and much of this came from my experience while playing the Alexander campaign on Toughest⁵ (which also provided some useful insights).

However it wasn’t until recently that I actually crunched the numbers on exactly how effective these behemoths really are. It turns out they are somehow even better than I thought they were.

Continue reading “War Elephant: Most Powerful Unit in the Game?”

Rare resources are a secondary resource available alongside the likes of basic (primary) resources such as Food. They provide a way to supplement other economic production, either by building on existing strengths, or helping to shore up weaknesses. Sometimes they can also create new strengths, allowing you to utilise strategies that might not otherwise have been viable options.

Continue reading “Building a Strong Economy Part 3: Fish and Rare Resources”

There are a few things about resources, resource gathering, and resource costs in Rise of Nations which don’t necessarily fit cleanly into their own separate category, but which are still important to know.

Continue reading “Building a Strong Economy Part 2: General Game Concepts”